EXCLUSIVE: Thunder Road has acquired The Embassy House to use as the basis for a feature about the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya which resulted in the death of four that included U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The book was written by Sgt. Morgan Jones and bestselling author Damien Lewis and will be published next month in the U.S. by Simon & Schuster imprint Threshold Editions. It is expected to reignite a hot-button topic. Basil Iwanyk will produce and Kent Kubena will be exec producer. The film will be written by Taylor Sheridan, whose adaptation of Comancheria has Marc Forster attached. Thunder Road is producing Sheridan’s script Sicario, and they’ve set him to script a look at Benghazi that is one part Black Hawk Down and another Lawrence Of Arabia. The book is by the ex-British Army soldier who was in charge of the security detail at the embassy. He was also close with the late ambassador, who was viewed as a positive influence in the region and whose death outraged many Libyans. It’s as much a look at how terrorists were able to breach security after red flags were waved as it is a look at the courage of the men who venture deep into hostile territories to try and win the hearts and minds of very skeptical people.

UK-based Luke Speed of the Marjacq Agency repped the book and Gersh’s Bob Hohman and Bayard Maybank and Elevate repped the scribe. Thunder Road used its own resources to buy the book and will fund development, and hasn’t yet enlisted a studio.